


Domestic

by auselysium



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 15:26:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: Alex and Michael have their first fight and old insecurities resurface.





	Domestic

Domesticity was something Michael Guerin had himself convinced he could live without.

His years in the foster system where he’d been harassed, berated, belittled and worse, had taught him not to seek comfort from the temporary places he was instructed to call “home”. Even as a child, intuition quickly showed him that hoping for any kind of tenderness or stability would just lead to disappointment.

At least in middle school and high school, he had Iz and Max. Family by race and experience alone but family nonetheless. At the end of the day, though, the Evans kids always went home to parents, who hung framed pictures of their family over the mantle. And crawled into beds piled high with quilts and stuffed animals leftover from when they were small.

And Michael didn’t.

Instead, he shoved his ludicrous curls off his brow and buried his head in a textbook designed for Grad student seminars, turned the radio up on his truck radio and told himself he’d be alright.

Then during the solo years, whiskey-laced and smoke-hazed, the only human connection came in one-night-stands, giving his latest lover his body and his heat, but not one inkling of his soul. A half-life of misuse and chosen solitude in a rundown trailer on a dusty patch of historic land. His bitterness had become ingrained, twisted into nearly ever conversation he had to the point that even his family would roll their eyes at every sarcastic remark Michael made.

But threaded through all that, weaved into memories both good and bad, there was Alex.

The boy whose kohl lined eyes had caught Michael’s, leaned in and revealed Michael to himself. The soldier who had walked away then walked back again on a prosthetic leg. The man who’d screamed, with sirens counting down their mutual destruction, that Michael was his family. Not by default but by a decades long choice. The lover had waited all night and long into the next day to finally, _finally_ talk, only for Michael to choose the person who allowed him to feel the least.

But only for a while. Then Alex became the friend. An unflinching rock to cling to when the universe fell apart. There too, when it reassembled into an unfamiliar new normal. It was clear by then that only place Michael’s heart had ever, and would ever, belong was carefully nestled along side Alex’s.

He had been the one to finally give Michael that tenderness. That bed to fall into a night after night, so much so that even the angle of the pillows begins to feel familiar. That home where every touch feels like love.

Simple, human, domestic life. Even when that meant walking the dog during snow storms and making sure one of them paid the damn electric bill.

Now that Michael had found such daily bliss, he was pretty sure he’d just gone and blown it all apart. Almost literally.

What the fight had been about didn’t even matter anymore. Who was right, who was wrong. It hadn’t been worth it. They’d never yelled at each other like that. Out of desperation maybe, or falsity, but not anger. Michael regretted every venom laced word he’d used and felt everyone Alex had thrown back like a lasting sting.

In the final throes, Michael had made a coffee mug, left on kitchen table from breakfast that morning, fly across the room, shattering it against the wall only a few feet from Alex’s head.

All their anger had died instantly, replaced instead by horror as Michael’s other-worldliness crashed between them like a wrecking ball.

“Alex, I... “ he had said, talking a halting step forwards. He hadn’t meant to, obviously. Sometimes it was just still hard to control that part of him.

“Don’t.”

Alex had grabbed his coat and keys to his Jeep and was gone.

That had been hours ago. Surely Alex would have cooled off by now? Michael just wants to make it right. But as the time stretches, he isn’t angry or even apologetic anymore. Michael is just straight up terrified that he’s ruined everything.

The night sky outside their kitchen window is wild with churning wind. In his nervousness, he takes comfort in the simple acts of domesticity to which he’s become accustomed. Falling into the rhythm of their life, together, even if Alex is gone.

He takes Mandy, Alex’s beagle who had latched onto Michael with jealousy inducing swiftness when they’d first met, out for an evening walk. She whimpers by Michael’s feet, her droopy ears matching her eyes when they return and Alex still isn’t there.

Michael looks down at her and rubs beneath her chin. “I don’t know when he’s coming home either.”

 _If he’s coming home_ , his nervous self-conscious supplies.

There are leftovers from dinner to put away. Dishes to clean. Michael fills the sink with soapy water and stares blankly out the window as he washes them, Mandy curled by his feet.

It’s only when she perks up and trots to the door, the tags on her collar jangling and Michael hears Alex’s voice, low and calm, saying, “Hey, girl. You already go out tonight? Course you did,” that Michael comes back to himself.

He doesn’t turn, too afraid to see the look on Alex’s face and find continued resentment. Too afraid to let Alex see the tears that are threatening to fall just cause he’d so god damned relieved that he’s back.

“Hey.”

Alex’s voice is even gentler than had been for Mandy.

Michael sniffs, blinks a few times to quell the tears. He turns on the faucet to rinse a particularly dirty pot. “Where did you go?”

“Into town. I went to the Pony and saw Maria. She gave me some tequila, on the house, of course.”

That feels like another sting. Knowing Alex still can’t see him, Michael allows himself a bitter pout. “Maria, huh? What, you two compare notes about what a shitty boyfriend I am, or something?”

“No.” Alex actually laughs. It sounds beautiful and normal. “Just felt like seeing an old friend, I guess. It’s still weird for us, sometimes.”

Satisfied by his work, Michael places the cleaned pot onto the drying rack next to the sink.

“Are you ever going to look at me?” Alex asks.

Michael wipes his hands on a towel, then still holding onto the checkered fabric, tucks his arms across his chest and turns. He props his hips against the counter and casts his eyes towards crossed his feet.

“I was fucking worried.”

“I had my phone. I would have called if there had been a problem…”

“No, Alex.” Michael finally lifts his gaze to meet his partner’s. “I was worried that you weren't…”

A deep crease forms in Alex’s brow. “You were worried I wasn’t coming home?”

Michael rolls his eyes and sighs heavily. Alex’s shoulders falls and takes a slow step towards Michael.

“Why would you think that?”

“‘Cause.” Michael gestures at the spot on the wall where smashed clay clings, white, to the sheet rock with a desperate noise. “And we fought and I was a dick...”

Alex takes another step. If he reached out now, Alex could touch him, grab his hand, place a comforting hand on Michael’s hip, but he seems to think better of it. “Couples fight, Guerin. It happens to everyone.”

“Does it?” Michael snaps. “I wouldn’t know.”

Besides his short-lived involvement with Maria, Michael’s never had anything like what he has with Alex. Not by a lightyear.

Michael watches Alex come stand next to him, leaning his hip against the counter adopting a similar stance. His cheeky are rosey, from the wind or the tequila or both.

“Now that you say it, I guess wouldn’t really know, either. We’re both just figuring this out as we go along, aren’t we?” Alex muses. “I mean, it’s not like I had a great parental relationship to model or load of relationships myself.” He scoffs gently at himself. “The Air Force wasn’t _exactly_ the best place to snag a boyfriend.”

Alex bumps him in the shoulder, letting Michael know it’s ok to laugh if he wants to, too. Michael gives him a sideways smile instead.

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

The sound of his first name from Alex’s lips is still a rarity. (After Michael had admitted once just how rough and tumble Alex sounds when he uses his last name instead) So his heart tugs extra hard as he hears it now.

Alex lays a hand across Michael’s belly, turning so the front of his body is flush against Michael’s side. He fits there, perfectly.

“I’m sorry that we fought,” he whispers. “I’m sorry that I yelled. That I stormed out. I’m sorry that I made you think, for even a minute, that I wouldn’t…”

Alex’s hand slides up Michael’s chest, pausing for a second at the base of his throat before cupping his jaw and nudging Michael’s head to turn so their eyes meet. “After everything we’ve been through, how could you doubt how much I love you?”

  
Michael shakes his head, pitifully. “Love doesn’t always mean staying.”

Alex’s other hand joins the first, holding Michael’s face firm. Michael couldn’t look away if he tried. Even if he wanted to.

“It does for me. I told you all those years ago that I was done walking away and I mean it. This," He redoubles his grip on Michael's face, casts his gaze around the wood-paneled walls of the home they share. "This is it for me, Guerin. Always has been, always will be.”

Michael lets his face fall deeper into the cradle of Alex’s palms and his lungs fill completely for the first time since Alex left. He catches the fabric of Alex’s jacket and pulls him even closer, kissing Alex long and soft.

“I’m sorry, too. For...everything.”

“Come on.” Alex smiles sweetly. “Let’s go to bed.”

Alex locks the door, turns off the porch light. Michael makes sure Mandy’s water bowl is full. And those things feel just as much of a promise as anything.

 

 

 

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> Still just figuring out how to write these two but I can't see myself stopping anytime soon...
> 
> Come find me over on tumblr: Auselysium


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